He said that lower house prices and affordable mortgage rates have yet to spur housing demand. For instance, house prices declined by 8.7 percent for the 12 months ending in December 2008 and were down 10.9 percent from their highs set ion April of 2007, according to the Federal Housing Finance Agency’s purchase-only monthly home price index.

Meanwile, existing home sales fell 4.7 percent in January to 4.05 million units, the slowest pace since July 1997, he said.

The five-year adjustable-mortgage rate rose to 5.06 from 5.04 percent over the same period, while the one-year ARM bumped up to 4.81 percent from 4.80 percent.